One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Friday, April 07, 2017

The Films of 1977: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The second-highest grossing film of 1977 (right
behind George Lucas’s Star Wars) was Steven Spielberg’s Close
Encounters of The Third Kind, a science fiction film concerning
mankind’s first official contact with alien life-forms. I've been thinking about the film a lot since I saw Arrival (2016), which also concerned this topic.

Close Encounter’s narrative
also involves the mystery behind alien abductions and the truth regarding a
government conspiracy to keep the existence of UFOs a secret.

Throughout the film Spielberg cross-cuts
between two major plot-lines: a scientist’s (Francois Truffaut’s) efforts to
develop a language so as to communicate with the visiting aliens, and one
blue-collar worker’s (Richard Dreyfuss) personal journey to better understand
their uncomfortable -- but growing -- presence in his daily life…and inside his
very head.

Importantly,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) was described by Science Digest as a film that is “tantamount to faith.”

The same publication
noted too that Close Encounters’ sense of faith, so “wondrous and thoroughly spiritual – is registered in nearly every
frame, reaching a climax in its messianic ending.”(Joy Boyom, Feb 1978,
p.17).

So the primary question that
viewers must reckon with regarding this cult classic is: why have so many reviewers
contextualized the Spielberg film as one of an overtly religious nature? Does
an understanding of the religious allegory open up new avenues for
understanding this work of art?

Or contrarily, does the religious
explanation of Close Encounters only serve to cloud the secular, humanist message beating at the movie’s
heart?

Close Encounters as
Religious Allegory

In part, the categorization
of Close
Encounters of the Third Kind as a film about spirituality and faith arises
because Steven Spielberg’s movie so abundantly features what David A Cook,
author of Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam,
1970 – 1979, calls “an aura of religious mystery.” (University
of California Press, 2000, p.47).

Roy Neary -- much like the
apostle Paul on the road to Damascus according to Paul Flesher and Robert Torry
in Film
and Religion: An Introduction -- experiences a kind of spiritual dawning or awakening.

In particular, Neary
sees a UFO and hears the call of the aliens (transmitted via a telepathically
implanted, subconscious “message” or “vision.”)

At first he does not
understand the alien message. What is the meaning of the strange thoughts in
his head? Why does he feel compelled to undertake a pilgrimage -- a journey to a location of great
importance to one’s faith -- to some mountain he has witnessed seen only in
his mind?

Eventually, however, Neary
surrenders to the vision, to his faith. He forsakes all his worldly belongings
and connections -- including his family -- in a devoted (and perhaps mad…)
attempt to understand why he has been “chosen” to hear this call from a
(literally) Higher Power.

Clearly, Neary seeks communion
with the message’s sender…with a stand-in for God. His quest in Close
Encounters thus reflects Scripture and Romans in particular. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing
through the word of Christ.” Here, Neary has heard and honored that word,
but it is the words of the aliens.

Neary’s hardship and
trials are eventually vindicated. At last, he meets the aliens at the mountain
of his vision (ironically at a place called Devil’s Tower), and then watches as
a version of the second coming of Christ is
re-enacted before his eyes.

According to Flesher and
Torry (Abindgon Press, 2007, p.200), the returned abductees whom the aliens
release from their landed mother ship symbolically represent the dead rising,
or the resurrection of the dead as foretold in Scripture. And furthermore, the
ascent of the alien craft to outer space with one of the faithful (Neary)
ensconced aboard it similarly represents the Christian rapture, the trip to
Heaven, essentially.

Even the physical
appearance of the aliens in Close Encounter might be readily
interpreted as strongly reflecting Christian apotheosis.

In his final ascent to
the stars, to Heaven, Roy Neary is wholly affirmed in his unyielding faith and
belief in the vision he received, over his wife’s cynicism and stubborn
skepticism, and over the U.S. Government’s attempt to “control” the meeting of
man and alien.

In some sense, Close
Encounters is all about taking a leap of faith, and that very idea
finds resonance in one of Spielberg’s compositions. Confronted with the
government lie about a deadly and toxic nerve gas spill in Wyoming (near
Devil’s Tower), Neary chooses to “believe” his own narrative instead. He rips
off his protective gas mask and breaths the purportedly contaminated air. But
he is proven right…he survives, and his faith is replenished.

Given the alien angels,
the metaphor for the Second Coming and even this leap of faith, the overall
effect, therefore, of this cinematic journey is indeed, well, rapturous.

Strangely, however,
there is a dark aspect to this story of religious awakening that one must also weigh.

While it is true that Roy
Neary transitions from an unhappy and spiritually bereft life to one of faith
and purpose, the cost of such knowledge of God (or God surrogate, in this case)
is his very family. In the act of proving his faith and his worthiness of being
“born again” in the stars, Roy abandons his family on Earth. This abandonment
is literal, not metaphorical.

The non-believers --
including his children -- get “left
behind” to toil in the world without his guidance or even presence. And
again, the message could be interpreted as strongly religious.

If you don’t “believe,”
you don’t get saved.

Close Encounters as a
Humanist Film

An alternate reading of Close
Encounters suggests this cinematic work of art from Spielberg is
actually a humanist film, the secular
tale of a man who chooses to no longer be enslaved to society’s destructive constructs
(including government, career, and family), and to follow his own individualpath instead.

The story, again, is of
Neary breaking free of constraints, but the breaking free in this reading is
from a society that lies, cover-ups, and demands his perpetual unhappiness for
its continuance.

The fact that Spielberg
plays the song “When You Wish Upon a Star” at the conclusion of Close
Encounters of the Third Kind is the primary support for this
reading.

One lyric in that
composition suggests a direct rebuke of faith, or religious identification. When
you wish upon a star it “makes no
difference who you are,” the song goes. In other words, you need not be affiliated
with any particular group or belief system if you hope to achieve your dreams.
You need not believe in God or a higher power. Instead, if you must merely
“wish” and voice your “dreams,” you will be rewarded for following the best
angels of your -- human -- nature.

In terms of history, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind followed closely on many frissons in
American politics, and this context, likewise, suggests a more humanist
reading.

President Richard Nixon
had been toppled in the Watergate Scandal in 1974, for example. His resignation
and culpability in illegal activity suggested that “faith” or “belief” in the
pillar of leadership was not such a good idea.

Similarly, the Vietnam
War had ended in ignominy for the U.S. in 1975. The cause that so many
Americans fought for (and died for…) was lost, and this very idea seems
reflected in Close Encounters’ final scene.

There, a line of carefully
vetted and approved government officials (surrogates for soldiers in Vietnam?)
are overlooked by the aliens in favor of the “Everyman,” Roy Neary.

By contrast to these
seemingly emotionless, expressionless, thoughtless drones, he is a man who
chose explicitly not to believe the fairy tales his government was peddling. He
has thus established his independence and his resourcefulness outside of
Earthly and national considerations.

In this reading, the
“leap of faith” of taking off the gas mask is actually the dawning awareness
that -- because of Watergate and Vietnam -- the U.S. Government could no longer
be trusted, or be considered an agent for honesty.

But again, in this
reading of Close Encounters, one must reckon with Neary’s pure
selfishness, his very questionable decision to leave his children and wife
behind for his own individual “self-fulfillment.”
And again, one must note that very idea of “sweet
fulfillment” is explicitly voiced in the lyrics to the song “When You Wish
Upon a Star.”

Yet I would suggest that Neary’s act of leaving
his family (and his government, and his job…) behind in 1977 would not have been
looked at by many audience members as purely a bad thing.

One must
recall that the 1970s was determinedly the decade of the “self,” a fact
reflected in the hedonism of disco music, and the blazing ascent in popularity
of the “self-help” book genre. Popular
buzz-words of the day included “self-realization”
and -- sound familiar? -- “self-fulfillment.”

Yet as the movement of “self” grew in the late
1970s, many people were concerned that the new ethos was merely one of
“self-involvement. The consumption-oriented life-style of immediate
gratification soon gave rise to President Carter’s notorious 1979 “Crisis of
Confidence” speech, which warned against judging success on material wealth
rather than intrinsic human qualities of character and morality.

Meanwhile, the nation kept building more
shopping malls, and imagined worlds futuristic (Logan’s Run) and
apocalyptic (Dawn of the Dead) set at these new shrines to
materialism. he 1978 Invasion
of the Body Snatchers remake deals explicitly with this notion too, of
the idea of people “moving in and out of
relationships too fast” because they wanted to be happy and fulfilled, all
the time.

But in a way, this is what Close Encounters concerns
as well. Roy Neary helps himself, finally, to achieve his “dream,” even if his
family can’t share in that dream. He gets what he wants -- to go with the
benevolent aliens to the stars -- and in the late 1970s, this result is what
qualified as a happy ending

In his text How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity
(Three Rivers Press, 1997, page 291) author Bruce Bawer wrote of Close
Encounters of the Third Kind that “salvation,
meaning, and transcendence come down from the Heavens in a spaceship.” The question to ponder today involves the
brand of salvation and transcendence.

Is it a spiritual reckoning, or a secular one
that the alien spaceship brings with it?

It is a testament to Spielberg’s skill, perhaps,
as a filmmaker and storyteller, that Close Encounters can be interpreted
through two such opposite lenses or world-views.

5 comments:

As I've mentioned before, I'm a religious individual (Roman Catholic) but never really thought through this sort of religious subtext that is in the movie if you look for it. I knew the movie spoke to me in a way that hardly any film had ever done. It is in fact the one film I've seen most often, paying to see it at least a dozen times when it was released. It moved me in a profound way but could never quite articulate why. Your article certainly helps!

With regards to Neary leaving his family and life behind in search of the spiritual fulfillment who so desperately needs, there are a number of verses in the bible where Jesus tells that by becoming his disciples that you must be prepared to leave your mother and father and that the decision will cause hatred and strife in one's own family. This makes sense because individuals were leaving traditional Judaism for something new and this was going to cause conflict and Jesus' new disciples needed to be prepared for the pain caused by their decision. This follows Neary's journey as he tries to share his revelation with his wife and family but increasingly separates from them as he is drawn closer to the true meaning of his visions.

Thanks once again for a wonderful essay. I'm printing this out and keeping it for further review!

John,Really nice examination of Close Encounters. You bring an interesting element to the arguments presented - the perspective of a man with a family, and what effect his actions might have on his children when he leaves. Funny, I'd never even given them a second thought! I guess I was too self-absorbed. :PThe fact that there is room for varying interpretations of the film's message speaks to its longevity and greatness. I've always opted for the humanist argument, but I cannot discount the religious view - both have valid points. I always wonder if the makers of these films have such ideas in mind when they're actually shooting, or if the viewer brings their own interpretation, which was never what the film makers intended to convey.I'm not certain if Spielberg had any deeper meaning in mind when he was filming CE3K. One thing that did come from the film was a conversation with Francois Truffaut, in which the French director told him to make a film centered around kids. This conversation inspired Spielberg to do just that, in a project that started as a sequel to Close Encounters, and eventually became E.T.Steve

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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